Destruction d'un cœur
First French edition.
A rare and very fine copy on pure Lafuma vellum, the only deluxe edition, in publisher's wrappers, as issued.
12mo, 219 pp. Publisher's brochure, uncut.
188 x 128 mm.
Zweig, Stefan. Destruction of a Heart.
Paris, Victor Attinger, 1931.
First French edition.
One of 50 copies on Lafuma pure vellum, the only large paper edition.
In Destruction of a Heart, an old man cannot accept that his daughter is becoming an adult. He allows himself to be consumed by a jealousy that gradually isolates him from others. Romain Rolland saw it as one of the “clearest tragedies of modern life, of eternal humanity.”
Destruction of a Heart disturbed Freud and delighted Romain Rolland. Frankly, Zweig speaks here of men’s virility and women’s desire; of sexual urges and aggressiveness; of troubled relationships, possession or rivalry, of the shipwreck of a couple who no longer share anything; and of the physical consequences of secrets when they cannot be spoken.
In Destruction of a Heart one finds the emotional rift that Zweig transcends, internalizes, and psychologizes to create a story that touches every reader to the core. You slip into the skin of an old man who, during a stay at a hotel in the South of France, catches his daughter, in the middle of the night, coming out of a stranger’s room. For him, it is the beginning of a long and lonely descent into hell. The father imagines the worst, and his heart, wounded by this hatred and these doubts he cannot express, fades little by little.
This masterpiece was an immediate success and is today considered a classic of world literature.
Rare and beautiful copy on Lafuma pure vellum, the only large paper edition, preserved in its original wrappers, as issued.
